Questão 1184785

Read text I and answer questions 31 to 40.

Text I

English language teaching and the challenges for

citizenship and identity in the current century

The teaching of a foreign language in schools in Brazil has

been subject to changes in the last decades, following changes

in the society as a whole. From the point of view of legislation,

a foreign language must be taught at high school level (5th to

(5) 9th grades) and at secondary school (Ensino Médio), with the

possibility of adding another language to this latter level. The

choices must take into account the community the school

belongs to and the conditions for language teaching. In

practice, English is the language chosen by the majority of the

(10) schools. This option is, of course, linked to the “value” it is

given by the whole society. As we are about to start a new

millenium, communication among different peoples of the

world is facilitated by global networks such as CNN and the

Internet. These channels, using mainly English to convey news

(15) to the world, reinforce the status of this language as a lingua

franca. This status, however, faces resistance (see Pennycook,

1991 and Canagarajah, 1999). The teaching of foreign

languages, from the government standpoint, however, has

remained untouched by such considerations.

(Adapted from http://periodicos.uem.br/ojs/index.php/ ActaSciHumanSocSci/article/viewFile/2759/1891)

The text refers to authors who criticize the status of English as a lingua franca and informs that the Brazilian government